


The Arc of Conflict, Edda 15: Negotiations and Ascensions

by bzarcher, solarbird



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [93]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Colonialism, Covert Operation, Destiny, F/F, Female Character of Color, Gen, Genetic Engineering, Gods, Government, Imperialism, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Character of Color, Mad Scientists, Mildly Dubious Consent, Negotiations, Oasis (Overwatch), Politics, Polyamorous Character, Post-Talon, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Research, Russia, Science, Talon Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Talon Fareeha "Pharah" Amari, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 05:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20304193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarbird/pseuds/solarbird
Summary: Katya Volskaya's government in Russia has destroyed the omnium Koschei, and held their own against the Gods of Oasis. With no point to additional fighting, the overt war has paused. But covertly, the conflict carries on. The gods, after all, still have a plan, and will do what is needed - one way, or another.It doesn't necessarily take a goddess to realise what the gods might be doing. It might just take proximity to the Changed - and to have been changed, even a little, yourself.Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Conflictis a continuance ofThe Arc of Ascension,The Arc of Creation, andThe Armourer and the Living Weapon. To follow the story as it appears,please subscribe to the series.





	The Arc of Conflict, Edda 15: Negotiations and Ascensions

**Author's Note:**

> This begins the second movement of the Arc of Conflict.
> 
> It also denotes a behind-the-scenes change.
> 
> Due to circumstances entirely outside her control, bzarcher's non-fandom life has become rather complicated. Don't worry, she's not sick, it's nothing like that, but she will be _very_ busy for the foreseeable future. And this means she is officially taking a hiatus from _Of Gods and Monsters_.
> 
> Because a fair lot of what is to come has been written - or at least roughed in - out of order, her name will continue to appear regularly on new instalments, but she won't be doing any additional work on the story during her hiatus. (I don't think she's even had time to read the second half of this instalment, for example.) So if you see that some instalments in future are credited only to Solarbird, that is why. For now, _Of Gods and Monsters_ is a solo project. 
> 
> (As some of this had already been happening, the schedule probably won't change all that much. But there probably won't be any return to multiple updates per week. That was madness anyway. （⌒▽⌒） )
> 
> I think that if people wanted to wish her the best of luck in her current situation, she would appreciate that very much. I haven't asked her about that - I'm just saying.
> 
> \-----
> 
> dirtyclaws has launched [a public fan-run _Of Gods and Monsters_ discord server](https://discord.gg/pDZMpVT) and invites everyone to come join it. ^_^

"We need to talk."

Dr. Masri stood in Angela Ziegler's doorway, which was, again, open. It had been closed for quite some time and Dr. Ziegler had not been at meetings she frankly should've been attending these last couple of months. First, for the operation in Russia, and then responding to the operation _by_ Russia, against Oasis.

The war, of course, went on. More quietly, now. More deviously. A shadow war, but a war nonetheless - but one in which some appearance of normality might be maintained, for a time.

Dr. Ziegler looked up, bronze eyes a bit rueful, and nodded. "I am sorry I have been away from my office - and my laboratories! - so often, as of late. I am sure you are not the only one unhappy with me. Please, come in."

"It's not about that," the Iraqi woman said, stepping in and closing the door.

"It's not?" Angela tilted her head, and frowned, just a little.

"No," Leyla said, standing across the desk from the doctor, arms across her chest. "It's about what you're doing. What _all of you_ are doing."

Even before her rebirth Angela had been a bit intimidating to most of her colleagues, but it had never seemed seem to work against Leyla. If anything, it seemed to have even less effect now. She had prized that quality when she’d hired the immunologist, but it took the Goddess just a bit off her stride, now.

"Very well, then," she said, nodding her head, gesturing with it towards an open chair. "Would you care to sit?"

"Perhaps,” Masri said, her voice carefully neutral. “But not yet."

Leyla took a deep breath, and let it out. She'd gone over this in her head, several times. She knew where the other gods were, at this moment, or where they should be, and where Cadu was - and she knew he supported her.

It's always good to have a friend on the inside.

"We know what you are doing."

Angela smiled, and looked a little relieved. "I would hope so. After all, that's the entire point of this foundation..."

"No. I know what you're _all_ doing. I was here when you vanished, don't you remember?" She leaned forward, her hands on Angela's desk. "I remember who you _were_. I have... some pretty good ideas about how you changed. And I - and several of us - have figured out the goals."

"I am _still_ myself," Angela said, admitting it was a question to an 'outsider,' of sorts, for the very first time.

"Are you?"

"And my _goals_ are no different."

"I think... it is a mix." Leyla replied.

"I take it you are... unhappy... with our goals, now? Have we become too much for you to accept?"

"No. I support what you are doing," she said, and Angela blinked, surprised. "I think. I know I cannot stop you, so I am not foolish enough to try. But I do _not_ support using _my_ home to do it." She straightened. "Not without _us_ being involved."

"Oh!" Angela said, her surprise plain across her face. "Oh! But you are..."

"No, we aren't," Leyla interrupted. "Not really."

She began to pace, slowly, back and forth, in front of Angela's desk. "Sixty years ago, all of our countries - most of them, anyway - were dictatorships. Half of them were _religious_ dictatorships. Dictatorships established either _by_ foreign powers, or _in reaction_ to foreign power colonialism. We were a _playground_ for their 'Great Game,' to the cost of _millions_ of lives."

Angela nodded slowly, keeping her silence even as her mind raced to process what she was being told.

"Oasis _was_ a college - a grand mosque of knowledge - that turned into a city on its own. And now, you and your... friends... have turned it into a _superpower_, based in part upon our work, but headed by... you. By self-proclaimed _gods_." She snorted. "Can you see how I am very much afraid I am seeing all those horrors start _again?_"

Dr. Zielger breathed out, slowly, ending with an _ah_. "...I can."

"Another religious dictatorship in the making?" Dr. Masri said. "Or worse?" She shook her head. "We will not go back."

"We don't interfere in city government at all," Angela protested, weakly, buying time to think. "We don't want to be in charge, we just..."

Masri spun, her hands slamming down on Angela's desk. "I'm not talking about where we put the _rail stations_, or the _parks_. I'm talking about the _actual_ power."

"We _don't want power_. We want..."

"To improve humanity."

"Yes!"

"Without being part of it. Name a _greater_ power."

Angela leaned back in her chair, taken aback, more than a bit. "We are... not separate. Not like that."

"But you are changed. And you're changing us, too, aren't you? Already."

It wasn't a question, but Angela still denied it. "No! Of course not. You're receiving the improved health care we all share, of course, but..."

"I lifted an ultracentrifuge yesterday."

"Excuse me?" Angela blinked.

"Jivika tossed her bag down on her bench, and it fell open, and everything came spilling out. I wanted to make sure nothing slid under it, and I just... picked it up, and asked her to check, and when I put it back down, I realised what I'd just done, and how much it weighed."

"How much does it weigh?" Angela blinked, honestly having no idea.

"Over sixty kilograms. Almost as much as me. And I... just picked it up. It was heavy, but... I did it." She looked at her hands, still a little bit disbelieving. "I hadn't bothered with a lifter in months and didn't realise until just then."

"Well, is that all? Sixty kilograms is heavy, but well within normal human capabilities. You're just," she paused, "in much better condition, now! That's all."

"Possibly," Leyla admitted. "But..."

She bit her lip, glancing towards the battlefield no longer smoking in the distance.

"Does that also explain why nobody is dying anymore? At least, without Russian help?"

Angela looked balefully up at her fellow researcher. "Is that supposed to be bad?"

"Better health is one thing," Leyla replied. "Getting younger is another."

"And who says people are getting younger?"

"I stopped dying my hair six months ago, because all my greys were gone."

Angela considered her words carefully. They hadn't implemented immortality. Not really. Not yet. But much of what they had done would have similar effects.

"Haven't you ever considered, perhaps, that aging is... more or less... a congenital disease?"

It was Leyla's turn to look balefully at Angela. She could feel it, inside. Not Changed, no. But a little changed, nonetheless.

"Haven't you noticed that's also when I stopped being a little afraid of you... and my emigree family started being a little afraid of _me?_" she whispered.

Angela stood up, and walked around her desk, looking Leyla Masri directly in the eyes. "I swear... as a _goddess_. We have _not_ been changing you."

"But you have. I can feel it. I can't..."

"No, we haven't. Not really. Some genetic damage repaired, yes. Abnormalities removed. Certain bad extremes... limited, as part of the standard city health package. But not anything out of baseline. It's _just_ nanite fleet maintenance, and they are _not_ the kind used in genetic work. They're just _not_. Everything you're seeing is just... what humans can be. As you are."

"I'm not sure that's true. But even if it is - you plan to."

"Yes," said the Goddess of Life, simply, plainly, honestly. "We do."

"I think I support you," Leyla said. "I really do. I think all of us here do, now."

She met Angela's gaze with her own.

"But... if we're going to be... _improved..._ we have to have a _say_ about what that _means_."

Angela stilled herself, thinking of everything she’d just learned, straining to look at it from the perspective Leyla was trying to share, the willfulness of a goddess fighting against the perspective of someone who was, once, after all, human.

_If it were me..._, she thought, _...even trusting someone... yes. I would want that... I **would've** wanted that... as well._

“Yes,” she finally agreed, "Yes. You are right. You should. And so, if you really are ready to do what is _needed..._"

She offered her hand.

Leyla Masri nodded, and took that hand in her own.

"...you will.”

\-----

"That's very interesting," Moira said, putting down her fork, leaning back in her chair, fingers intertwined in front of her face, mind chasing down possibilities as she spoke. "I would not have expected that."

"I certainly didn't," Angela replied, similarly deep in thought.

"We'll have to work out some sort of structure, I suppose."

Moira grimaced, a little. She didn't like people interfering in any way - _any_ way - with her work. _But... it's just scheduling, not the actual work. That's... not overly objectionable, as long as it stays in bounds. And it's Leyla Masri. She's quite intelligent._

"Who should be involved?"

"Dr. Masri, obviously."

"Obviously. Cadu?"

"Yes, if she'll accept him."

"They're friends, I think she will."

"You've noticed?" Angela asked, a bit of a surprised smile. Moira hadn't always noticed, in the past. But she liked that she did, now.

"I've seen them talking several times when I've stopped by. If not friends, they're... on good terms."

"Mm," Angela nodded. "And... perhaps we should ask the two of them, for other candidates. People who share their concerns, but are..." She gestured with her right hand, in the air, back and forth. "...not afraid to see what needs to be done, and actually _see it done_."

"Indeed," Moira replied, with a little smile.

"Have you figured out what tipped her off, yet?" Fareeha asked, poking at her sweet vermicelli, made the Iranian way, with milk instead of water. It had been an experiment, and she wasn't sure what she thought of the milk - it did add something, but she wasn't sure she liked what it added.

"There isn't anything _to_ have tipped her off!" Angela insisted. "They're all still within the baseline, and _well_ within human norms! I checked, of course."

"Of course," Fareeha said, leaning over, squeezing her wife's hand.

The three of them had decided to take dinner at home, given the sensitive subject matter. Fareeha wasn't any sort of biologist or doctor at all, though her engineering training did give her a bit of insight, occasionally, to the way the researchers thought.

"Six months," Moira murmured, as she reached for the desert wine, on the side table, between her and Angela's seats at the main table. She liked sweets, but only to a point - unlike Lena and Emily, who, as far as she could tell, liked them in every way possible. "We did a baseline refresh six months ago, did we not?"

"Yes," Angela said. "We're late on the new revision, thanks to _them_," she said, meaning the Russians, a bit of grit to her teeth and anger in her voice. "But it's almost ready."

"The largest population sample we'd had yet, wasn't it?"

"At least the delay let us roll in a few more advancements," Angela barrelled on, consoling herself, as much as anything else. "But I think after this, everyone will realise the benefits of being more reasonable about what we're doing."

"Being more involved would help," Fareeha noted. "Knowing how things work affects how people think of them."

Moira's eyes narrowed, as she thought, setting aside Angela and Fareeha's discussion, sifting through the procedures from the last revision in her mind, everything done to make the current baseline what it was. All that data, the best dataset yet, from all over the world, even...

Suddenly, she laughed.

"Well," she said, half to herself, "it does seem to be working out. Particularly if they've decided to be on our side."

"What?" Angela said, confused, glancing back to her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Moira said, shaking her head a little, with a small smile. "I've been thinking. We wanted the largest possible sample set, remember?"

"Of course." Angela and Fareeha both nodded.

"So I included us. At least, those parts of us still applicable."

Fareeha blinked. _That could mean a good many things._ "Was that a good idea?" she asked, a little warily.

"Oh, don't worry, dear," Moira replied, squeezing her wife's wife's hand, this time. "Only those parts still appropriate, I promise you."

"Good. That sort of rollout would be... highly out of order," Fareeha replied, squeezing back.

"It shouldn't have triggered any major shifts," Moira continued, after a moment. "It's more that I made some room for future upgrades. Extra data collection, a little extra insurance of compatibility, perhaps some... small additional care, to insure that when we move ahead on the later phases, we'll already know it's all going to work."

"Mm," Fareeha replied, a small noise of assurance.

Angela ran through the data in her head. "That shouldn't be enough to make them feel any differently, at all, not even any..."

"More confident?" Moira smiled. "We're all rather _confident_, don't you think? It might be catching."

"Some of us always have been," Fareeha said, smirking.

"I know, and I rather adore that in you, did you know?" Moira replied, not smirking at all. "But... a combination of less _fear_ and more... _confidence..._ perhaps... that's something they've all needed all along. If they're already on our side, and have the..."

"_Bravery_," Angela said, taking in a breath. "_Bravery_."

"Bravery indeed," Moira nodded. "The _bravery_ to see what _needs_ to be _done..._"

"I _know_ what you did in that prep work, we all signed off on it. It shouldn't be enough to notice."

"And so far, it's taken one of our own, working with us directly, _to_ notice." She pointed, briefly, with her glass of wine, before putting it back down at the side table. "Dr. Masri's always been very alert to such details, in my experience. It shows up in her work, for the better. I don't think it will be discovered so generally."

"Well," Angela said, returning to her own pastry, "We should still be more careful. We're almost ready for the next phase, and we don't want anyone to start some sort of panic."

"Agreed," Moira said, leaning back, and taking a bit of the cranberry wensleydale Lena had discovered last year, a seasonal cheese, but quite good. "We'll step up the monitoring tomorrow, instead of next month - as long as Satya is onboard."

"I think she'll be ready," Fareeha said, with a little bit of a smile. "After all, we're still on heightened vigilance."

"Good. Just to make sure I'm right." Moira reached for her wine, again. "We wouldn't want to be caught offsides."

"No, that wouldn't do." Angela reached over, stealing a bit of Moira's wensleydale. "Not at all."

**Author's Note:**

> This is the twenty-second instalment of _Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Conflict_, and begins the second movement of that arc. To follow the story, [subscribe to the series via this link](https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024), rather than to the individual works.


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